


Where There's Hope

by gray-streaks (hudmelberrysonnyc)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-01 18:19:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4029904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hudmelberrysonnyc/pseuds/gray-streaks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is never easy when you're a single mother and when you're Sally Jackson, motherhood and life get especially complicated, but sometimes, you aren't quite as alone as you appear to be.</p><p>“As far as I know it’s never been done with a child of the Big Three before - of me, Zeus, or Hades. It might not even work.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trust Your Heart (August 1993)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [percyyoulittleshit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/percyyoulittleshit/gifts).



> Oh gods, where do I even start with this one?
> 
> A few years ago, I started NaNoWriMo with a 30 day prompt challenge thing and finished with... well not what I intended. This pretty much came from that. I left it unfinished at the end of November because of a lot of reasons, I didn't think (still don't really) that I could do Sally's story justice, I was absolutely terrified of screwing up the Gabe sections and the healing that comes afterwards, and so many others. Mostly, I just ran out of feelings and couldn't be in her head any longer. This fic's been at the back of my mind ever since and earlier this week, I finally rediscovered whatever it was that had led me to this fic in the first place, so here we are. If you follow me on tumblr, this shouldn't be news, it's all I've been able to talk about lately.
> 
> This is nowhere near finished. I'm rewriting as I go and, as this was originally a 5 and 1 fic (or really a 5 and 1 and 1 fic) spread out over 18 years or so, it needs a lot of work. So between work, a (hopefully) up-coming move, and research (so much research omg) there may be some time between chapters, but I'll do my best to keep it within a couple of weeks.
> 
> The explicit rating is, for the most part, just in case. If the porn doesn't actually happen I'll drop it, but it probably won't go below mature. Blame Gabe, the domestic violence is all him. Or will be.
> 
> Enjoy!

In the corner of a New York City hospital whose better days are long gone, twenty-two year old Sally Jackson sits in a parked wheelchair and cradles her newborn son in her arms. Despite the fact that the waiting room is mostly empty somebody manages to stop and exclaim over the baby every few minutes. For while, she enjoys it, Sally’s only ever had this kind of attention once in her life and... Well, Perseus’ father is gone now. Mostly though, she tries to keep from sounding too bored when the conversations inevitably repeat themselves.

“Oh my! He’s so little!”

“Look at all that hair!”

“Green eyes _already_?”

When the nurse (a tall, blond guy with muscles like something from a comic book and grin that was impossibly, heart wrenchingly, familiar) wheeled her out to the waiting room she had asked to be parked in this corner and as far from the main action as possible. As much as she finds herself enjoying the attention, it’s the last thing she wants. What if somebody looks at Percy and sees the resemblance she already knows will someday threaten to tear the heart out of her chest?

It’s bad enough that even an hour later that nurse has her stomach in knots for reasons Sally can’t put her finger on, but hopes are simply because he barely looks eighteen. Or that his yellow scrubs are the brightest thing in the room.

While she waits, the waiting room fills and empties in waves that aren’t nearly as comforting as the original, but she finds that they wash over her just the same.

No matter how busy they are the nurses always seem to find time to look over and see how she’s doing. Luckily, tall, golden, and uncomfortable is nowhere to be found. Or, as it turns out, perhaps unluckily. He’s the only one who hasn’t pitied or judged her since she stumbled through the ER doors on her own two days ago.

Unless the nurses actually come over to ask if they need anything, Sally does her best to ignore their glances. Yes, she just had a baby she can’t afford and named him a seemingly pretentious name. Yes, they gave her room away the instant they could because she can’t pay for it and there’s a twenty-six year old married with twin girls who can. _Yes_ , she’s stuck sitting in the waiting room for a ride back to her shitty one bedroom apartment that would probably be better off without that one wall. Gods, it’s New York City in the nineties, surely they’ve seen it before.

When Percy starts to fuss, at least six people turn to glare at her within the next half second, including the nurse at the station fifteen feet away who had (not so subtly) flirted with Nurse Golden when they’d walked past earlier. As if he wasn’t half her age.

Oh gods, please be half her age.

 _Really,_ Sally thinks as she ignores them and rocks Percy as best as the chair will let her, _it’s a waiting room outside the maternity ward, what do you expect?_ She hums and fiddles with the blue blanket until she can check his diaper. Not for the first time she smiles at how appropriate the color is.

She wonders if Poseidon knows yet. If he knows that their baby, their _son_ , has been born yet. If he knows that Percy, despite still being all red and squashy looking is going to look exactly like him, that the first thing the nurses had exclaimed over was how green his eyes are. She wonders if the old man who keeps glancing up from his newspaper in the opposite corner is actually him.

Sally shakes herself out of that particular daydream as soon as it starts and catches sight of the clock on the wall. She not sure if they sigh that escapes her is in annoyance because it’s not six-thirty yet, or relief because it’s finally almost six. She’s pretty much been sitting here since one, surely there has to be a better way to handle this kind of thing.

She hates hospitals. It’s unreasonable she knows, but she blames them for her lack of a high school diploma and, consequently, her inability to find a decent job. They’re the reason she isn’t starting her final year of college or writing that book that’s been at the back of her mind since she was fourteen. They’re why she doesn’t have a decent apartment to take Percy home to.

It’s untrue of course, and completely ridiculous, but when Uncle Rich got cancer she needed somebody to blame. Blaming the tobacco companies wasn’t in anyway satisfying and it was too hard to blame Uncle Rich himself, he was the only family she had left. So her emotions shifted to hospitals, as if they’d given her uncle lung cancer on purpose.

And she hates waiting. It gives her doubts.

Six-thirty comes and goes and Lisa Weston, Sally’s ride to what passes for home and the only friend Sally managed to keep when she dropped out of high school, fails to make an appearance. The closer it gets to seven the less Sally thinks that maybe Lisa just got lost in the sea of parking lots and the more the nurse (a new one by now) glares at her from the station across the half full waiting room. Eventually she has no choice but to feed Percy in public, _again,_ and just as he goes back to sleep and the dirty looks start to fade, Lisa finally appears.

It’s nearly a quarter to eight.

“I’m so sorry!” Lisa calls the instant she catches sight of the annoyed look on Sally’s face even though she’s still at least half way across the room. “I had to turn my reports in today, but Louis hadn’t finished his part of the project and it was this huge mess…” Her foot catches against the leg of one of the bolted down, plastic chairs and she stumbles nearly whacking a toddler in the face with her large bag as she does, “Sorry! Sorry!” she exclaims as she rushes past, ignoring the annoyed grumbles starting to come from various places of the room in favor of turning her attention back to Sally and her bundle. “But none of that matters. Let me see!”

“Here,” Sally says with barely a second’s hesitation, “you can hold him.” She hands the baby over and stands for the first time in hours using the motion to grab the overnight bag she’d hardly had time to use from the floor and setting it in the wheelchair instead. “Would you just watch him for just a minute?” she asks with a nod towards the nearest bathroom sign. Lisa doesn’t stop the cooing noises she’s started make, but she nods so Sally hurries down the hall.

A couple of nurses rush after her, but she just shakes them off. She can pee without their help or judgement, thanks.

When she’s finished, there’s more paperwork. The hospital may have kicked her out of her room hours ago, but that doesn’t mean they let her check out - something about sitting around waiting for a ride meant she was still in their care. Whatever.

Eventually they make it out to the parking lot and Lisa’s old Dodge that may have been new when Sally’s parents met. Lisa tosses Sally’s bag in the backseat and takes Percy again so Sally can get settled in the passenger’s side. “We really should have a car seat for this,” she mumbles, mostly to herself, while she waits.

Sally sighs and holds out her arms. “Yes, but do you know how much they cost?”

For once, Lisa doesn’t say anything and Sally thinks that might actually be the end of it, but then as they’re turning onto the road, “Look, Sal, you’re my best friend and I love you, but you can barely feed yourself most days. A third of the time you don’t have power because you couldn’t afford the bill that month. Just what exactly are you going to do?”

Sally’s been wondering that herself for months so she doesn’t answer. She can’t answer, so instead she strokes her son’s sleeping face with one finger and watches the streetlights pass through the window.

Lisa just sighs in response to the non-response and the pair of them stays quiet for the rest of the ride. She’s always been the chatty one so it’s not really that surprising that after they make it up the stairs to Sally’s apartment Lisa’s the first to break the silence.

“Keys?”

“Front pocket,” Sally says shortly, sounding way more irritated than she’d ever intended, then she sighs. “I know you’re just trying to help, Liz, really, I do.” She steps into the tiny cramped apartment behind her friend and nudges the door closed with her foot. It closes a lot louder than she had intended and the noise jolts Percy awake causing him to start crying as loud as his tiny lungs will allow. “Things have been difficult ever since Uncle Rich was diagnosed,” she says over the noise, “and they only got worse after we buried him. I’m still trying to figure out how to live my life now that I don’t have to live his.”

Lisa frowns a little, tossing the keys onto the crowded coffee table and sinking into the worn couch. “It’s been almost three years.”

“I know.” Sally sits much more slowly, feeling the ache all through her, and pushes a messy pile of baby clothes she’d been given by a neighbor off the table so she has a place to lay Percy while she changes his diaper.

“Most of these are way too big for your little guy,” Lisa says rolling her eyes in amusement and starting to fold the clothes into proper piles.

“Yes,” Sally agrees, one eye and hand on Percy while she digs around for a fresh diaper and the unopened box of baby wipes she knows is around here somewhere, “but they were free.”

Lisa sighs again, but doesn’t say anything until the clothes are stacked and stowed under the coffee table for lack of anywhere nicer. “I know you don’t like to talk about it, about _him_ , but have you considered…”

Laughing softly, sadly, and with a wistfulness she hopes Lisa can’t hear, Sally finishes for her, “Asking his father for help?” She finishes wrapping Percy back into his blue blanket and carries him over to the crib that’s been crammed into one corner of the tiny living room. Once her face is hidden, she closes her eyes for a moment and swallows past the lump building in her throat.

She’s spent months evading the question and ones similar until she can come up with an answer that doesn’t make her feel as if she’s living a lie. She thinks she’s finally come up with one, but until now she hasn’t had the chance to use it. “I can’t,” Sally starts, breaking her friend’s not actually all that patient silence, then, for the first time, she says it, “Percy’s father was lost at sea a couple of days weeks after I tested positive.”

When Sally turns back around Liz is blinking in surprise, clearly she hadn’t actually expected an answer. “What’s that even supposed to mean?”

“He went out one morning, in his boat, to take care of something really quick and he never came back.”

And yes, okay, there hadn’t actually been a boat, but what was she supposed to say? “The Greek god of the seas kissed me goodbye one morning, picked up his trident and then walked out into the waves before sprouting a tail.”

To her credit, Liz looks properly horrified. “Was there a storm? Did you send out a search party? The Coast Guard?”

“I didn’t have too,” Sally laughs a little going back to the couch, “I knew it was goodbye.”

Lisa stares at her in bewilderment for a few seconds, “Fine be cryptic.” She glances at her watch and winces, “I should go before Jake calls the Coast Guard on _me_.” She kisses Sally on the cheek. “If you need anything-”

“I know.”

Lisa smiles a bit, like she know Sally won’t call to ask for help, and glances into the crib one last time before letting herself out.

Sally sighs, rubs at the back of her neck, and winces with a sigh when it cracks. She’s exhausted, her everything hurts, being able to see her feet again is weird and she really just wants to lay down and sleep for about three days. On the other hand she hasn’t eaten since about noon and Percy’s asleep _now_.

Food it is.

She doesn’t even have to leave the living room to go to the kitchen. There’s a fridge in the corner across from the crib. Next to that is a stove that is at least a third smaller than the one she grew up with and only one of the burners works. There’s a sink, but it only has one basin and is so shallow she has to drain it every load of dishes. Most of the tiny counter is taken up by the old microwave that is one of the two things she kept when she sold everything in her uncle’s house to pay the medical bills.

The even older, broken typewriter that belonged to her father and, before him, her grandmother, is under the bed in the other room.

Lisa was right about one thing, Sally thinks as she opens the fridge and then shuts it just as quickly when she sees that it’s completely empty except for half a bottle of ketchup, a jar of jam, and an outdated carton of eggs, she can barely afford to feed herself. Eventually she finds the remainder of a loaf of bread in the cupboard. It’s just one slice and the heel, and nearly stale, but still edible so she goes back to the fridge for the strawberry jam and digs the large jar of peanut butter off the top of the freezer. She discovers that there are still potato chips in the bag on the microwave, well crumbs really, and she takes them too. A glass of water from the sink later she heads back to the couch.

She eats slowly, keeping her eyes either on her food or on the tiny form inside the crib. She’s been trying to avoid the ‘what are you going to do?’ question for months, despite knowing that put it off wasn’t going to make things any easier in the long run. She can’t anymore, she needs to figure this out before she really fucks it up.

She already knows that getting her GED will do wonders for her job prospects, but how is she going to get it? The high school a few blocks away has night classes starting in a couple of weeks, she saw the flyers, but she knows she can’t take Percy with her. Even if she had a diploma she’ll never find a job that pays enough to cover both their basic living expenses and childcare and that’s what it’ll all boil down to in the end.

Even if Sally did feel she could ask Poseidon for help, she knows there’s nothing he could do to help her there. Or anywhere.

Not only that, but she has more than the usual single parent issues to worry about.

Percy’s going to become a target. She doesn’t know when, but Sally knows that it’ll be sooner rather than later, and far sooner than she’d like. Which is never. She remembers the conversation with Poseidon during those few, precious weeks between her positive test and his leaving:

_“I could still build you that palace, make you and the baby immortal and-”_

_“See how long it takes for Amphitrite to hunt me down?”_

_“-by the time Zeus finds out it’ll be far too late for him to do anything about it,” Poseidon finishes without missing a beat. He’s leaning back on the beach, completely at home next to her driftwood fire and in (what at least appears to be) an old Hawaiian shirt and clashing swim trunks. She has no idea where the trident is but she’s sure it’s around somewhere. At some point during the evening the boating shoes he’d arrived in had vanished without a trace. He looks like a college kid, if a slightly older one, maybe twenty-five._

_He takes a deep drink out of the apparently bottomless shell shaped flask of nectar he seems to always carry with him and watches her over the rim for a moment. He must have left all of his godly dignity behind when he left the ocean today because when he speaks again it starts with a snort, “Amphitrite? She hasn’t left the palace walls for centuries.”_

_“Triton then, or one of your other kids,” Sally says with a sigh doing her best not to roll her eyes at the god, “the point is we’d be stuck in a- we’ve had this conversation before. I won’t let you, or your wife, or anybody, control how I live my life. If my life’s going to mean anything, if our_ baby’s life _is going to mean anything, it’s got to be on our terms.”_

_Poseidon’s eyes close and his shoulders slump in what she’d label defeat if she actually thought that’d he’d been expecting a different answer. It’s a funny look for him, defeated or not, he’s thousands of years old and still doesn’t know how to lose._

_Sally knows that he could force her if he wanted, and there would be nothing she could do about it and only one person that would miss her; half of the my-stories she’s read say that that’s how he married Amphitrite in the first place. She’s never been brave enough to ask what really happened then, it’s Ancient History and she’s not going to try to tell him how to treat his wife of at least three millennia, especially not when she herself is the other woman. Besides, she thinks she can read his moods well enough to know that the amusement in that snort wasn’t entirely directed at her._

_Calmly, Poseidon caps his flask and puts it safely away. Leaning forward he says, “Then there’s some things you should know.”_

_Her heart clenches immediately, but she meets his eyes determinedly._

What followed was a long conversation that made her head spin. Her baby (even then she’d known that Percy would be Poseidon’s by the loosest definition of fatherhood) wasn’t supposed to exist. When Zeus finds out it does, they’ll all be in trouble. And there was something vague about the biggest, most dangerous, prophecy in centuries. None of it really made any sense, but every time she tried to get Poseidon to explain more, Poseidon would go off on a long rant about the powers the baby will probably have and when they’ll develop.

 _“Most demigods come into their power around thirteen,” Poseidon says for what is probably the third time, ignoring the ways she sighs when he invades her questions about the prophecy_ again _, “or rather, they begin to notice their powers around thirteen, sometimes a bit earlier.”_

_That part’s new so she blinks in surprise and pauses while unwrapping what’s probably her fifteenth salt water taffy since lunch. “They start to notice them?”_

_“As long as they don’t know what they are, the Mist will conceal it from even them until then. Apollo and Dionysus are sure it has something to do with brain chemistry and puberty, but I’ll be damned if they can figure out what.”_

_“But I’ll know.”_

_“You’ll know,” Poseidon agrees, eyes twinkling with amusement as she pops the bright blue taffy into her mouth._

_“This all your fault,” she mutters, tossing the huge bag of candy onto the narrow counter in the little beach house kitchen. There now she can’t reach them._

_Poseidon laughs, warm, rich and hard enough to shake the table between them. He showed up with a beard and taffy today and she’s been fighting the urge to try pulling him into the tiny shower ever since._

_“You’ll have to act as if you didn’t just see your kid disappear in the pool for twenty minutes, nobody else will notice it. You can’t say anything, not even to give the kid a lecture about giving you a heart attack.”_

_“Why?” She demands. She knows it’s rude, but she hates lying, he’s known that ever since he tried to laugh off the trident that first day. If she’s going to lie to her kid about the most basic facts of their admittedly not so basic life there’d better be a damn reason better than “God told me to.”_

_“Demigod’s have a certain… scent to monsters,” Poseidon explains with barely a raised eyebrow, “it gets stronger as they get older, but it’s not generally dangerous until around thirteen or know what they are.”_

_“Generally.”_

_“The more powerful the demigod the stronger their scent and… well.”_

_At least he has the decency to look guilty. It’s… bizarrely adorable, really._

_“There’s this place, Camp Half-blood… shush I didn’t pick the name… where they can be safe. It’s protected, monsters can’t get in, and it’s always about seventy degrees and sunny. They can train, learn how to fight, become heroes. It’s technically a summer camp, but there’s a lot of kids that choose to stay year round for various reasons.”_

_She doesn’t hesitate, “Can I go?” Then, before he can do more than open his mouth, “I don’t like it, what else have you got?”_

_Poseidon sighs, there’s history in the sound, more than she really wants to think about, and she suddenly wonders how many kids never make it to the camp. “There really aren’t any, it’s a new concept as it is, relatively speaking. They’ll have to go eventually and often, any hero of mine will be too powerful to be kept out for very long, and Chiron will probably throw a fit if you tried. There’s really not much else you can do besides learn to fight the monsters off yourself, you can see them, you could do that.” He visibly hesitates._

_“Or?” Sally prods, glaring at him until he tells her. She suddenly wonders why the taffy is so far away._

_“Or,” he admits reluctantly, “there are some people, some mortals,” he clarifies mostly, she thinks, too buy himself some time, “that are so… quintessentially human in a way, so greedy and selfish and, in most cases, violent, that their smell masks the demigod scent.”_

_Sally stares at him, her heart sinking while images of some of her uncle’s friends race through her mind._

_“As far as I know it’s never been done with a child of the Big Three before - of me, Zeus, or Hades. It might not even work.”_

Over in his crib, Percy starts crying.

Sally drops her empty plate onto the coffee table and goes to get him. He seems to be hungry again so she winds her way back around the coffee table and through the piles of secondhand baby supplies so she can feed him on the couch.

 She had dismissed the idea months ago. Somebody like that, greedy, selfish, and violent, is not the kind of person she, or, she believes, any sane mother, would want around their children. Not for any length of time if it can be avoided and she’d known, that if this unknown man’s scent was ever going to be permanent enough to cover Percy’s, she’s going to have to marry him.

Years ago, Sally Jackson promised herself that she would never have a relationship with a man like her uncle, or worse, like his friends. She swore that she wouldn’t marry a man that, for reasons entirely of his own making, can barely hold down a job, a man that refuses to acknowledge the ones who are supposed to matter most until he needs something from them. The type of man that will probably hit her at least once.

Thanks to Poseidon, Sally knows what it’s like to be loved. She knows what it’s like to be wanted, to be protected, and to feel it down to her bones. She knows what it’s like to be the center of somebody’s universe, even if just for a second, and she won’t go back to that other way of life. She refuses to raise her son there.

But she’s been cradling her son to her chest all day and the longer she does it, the stronger her need to protect him grows. Sally knows, can practically feel it in her gut eroding away her former resolve, that the asshole, the… _quintessential humans_ (and honestly, she’s still trying not to take offense to that one) are the least of her worries when it comes to keeping Percy safe. And she has to protect him, her impossible baby, her little green-eyed miracle, has to keep him safe until he can protect himself and won’t let her do it anymore. _That’s_ a more recent promise, one she made only a few months ago, back in the relatively early days of her pregnancy, when she had first realized how impossibly fragile her situation is, and how unprepared she is for it. Back when Lisa had actually almost managed to talk her into an abortion.

Now, she knows in her heart that she has no choice but to try. There’s no choice left but to find the kind of man she had once thought she was clean of forever. No choice but to find a man that is so horrendously human that there just isn’t enough of him to contain it. A man so completely the opposite from everything she fell in love with, from her son, that his very existence blocks it all. She needs to find a man that can overwhelm a piece of the ocean and then marry him.

 _Then_ she has to give him everything he wants, whatever he wants, when he wants it. She has to give him every reason to stay so that he has no reason to leave. She has to let him own her and do it without him ever finding out that it’s exactly what she wanted in the first place.

Anything to protect her baby.

Sally pulls Percy away from her chest and shifts him to her shoulder. “Shhh…” she murmurs in response to his cries and pats his back like the nurses had showed her. “It’ll be okay, Sweetie, it’ll be okay.” She squeezes her eyes shut and, though she does her best to ignore the painful clenching in her chest, a tear or two rolls down her cheek and into Percy’s dark hair.

As much as she wants to, she doesn’t let herself join Percy’s little pity party.

After she puts Percy back to his crib, Sally moves the plate and it’s crumbs to the sink and flips off all the light. She navigates around the messing living room, finds her bedroom, and gets ready for sleep in the dark.

Slowly, she crawls into bed, careful not to pull the stitches she’d never expected to need. She knows she’ll only get a few hours of sleep at most before Percy needs her again, but instead of closing her eyes she rolls on her back and stares at the ceiling.

For a moment, she hesitates, swallowing nervously. She’s never done this before, to any god, but a few minutes and a deep, calming breath later, she’s able to focus on Poseidon and the feeling of his arms wrapped around her, the way the Ancient Greek murmured against her ear sounded like the waves on the rocks a mile or so up the beach. The sea breeze that follows him everywhere even that greasy burger joint downtown he’d treated her to once.

“Hello, Love,” she feels like an idiot, but she swallows again and keeps going, “I don’t even know if you can hear me, or how this works or…” She clears her throat and tries again, “Our baby was born today. He already looks just like you,” she laughs a little, “except he’s so tiny and helpless… I have to protect him, whatever it takes.”

Another pause.

Another deep breath.

“What you said about some people, like my uncle, how they can… Would it work? Would it really work? Even if it’s just for a couple of years? I’m not asking for help,” she adds quickly, suddenly flustered, “I know I can’t, said I wouldn’t, and I’m not. I just… need a sign?” It comes out weakly, pathetically, and with a wince.

Come on, it’s the cliché of every loosely religious movie she’s ever watched on T.V.

“Please, I just need to be sure before I…” she trails off again. Before she what? Puts herself and her infant son in immediate danger in the hope that it might protect him from future, possible, mythical threats?

It sounds insane.

She waits, peering around in the gloom, until her exhaustion catches up with her and she falls asleep, but nothing happens.

XxXx

_As soon as she sees him that night, Sally knows it’s the end._

_He’s late enough that she’s already given up on seeing him that day and changed into one of the ratty shirts she sleeps in. She’s sitting up on the old rickety bed, having intended to read a chapter or two of the novel she’d picked up in the gas station weeks ago, but she’s found herself staring towards the beach through the open window. She’s not really thinking about anything in particular, just letting the breeze off the sea wash over her, but one hand rubs absent circles against her stomach._

_It’s still as flat as it’s ever been._

_The next gust of wind feels different, more like a caress and she smiles, turning her head as it passes._

_When Poseidon materializes, it’s practically on top of her. There’s something new in his eyes, something ancient, exhausted, frustrated, and… wistful? Sally can barely catch a glimpse of it in the dim glow cast by the little camping lantern on the side table before he’s pressing his forehead to hers and too close for her to really make out much of anything. She doesn’t think that she’s ever seen that many emotions on him at once, seen him look so painfully_ human _._

_One of his hands, large and calloused, tangles with the one on her belly and she’s just putting her free one against his face when he reaches back to twist the dial on the lantern. The complete darkness is a first and her heart clenches painfully._

_Sally Jackson knows hiding when she sees it._

_The kiss, when it comes, is bruising and relentless, crushing like the waves against the cliffs he’d taken her to a few weeks ago. He’s barely keeping all that hidden strength in check, but she manages to get her arms around him and holds on. She scrapes her fingers through his hair, down his neck, across his shoulders, and anywhere she can reach, trying to reassure him that neither of them are going anywhere just quite yet, but her grip turns desperate, possessive._

_He groans then, suddenly, and it surprises them both into stillness, the silence broken only by her own gasping breaths for air._

_Sally’s never known him to be silent, in fact, Poseidon usually seems to have a hard time shutting up and skips between languages faster than she can follow some nights - Spanish into her hair, Italian along her ribs, French kissed into her thighs. There’s other languages too, ones she doesn’t recognize, has probably never heard of and will never hear again. Other nights, he murmurs so much Ancient Greek into her neck that she worries about waking up to find it permanently tattooed there. He’s always been a talker, but Poseidon’s never been_ loud.

_She needs to hear it again, has to while she still has the chance._

_The bed frame creaks, the thin mattress rolling beneath them as Poseidon shifts, pulling backward, and letting her slide back into her nest of pillows and blankets and sleeping bags... He clears his throat, almost awkwardly, and she_ knows _he’s about to leave the same way he came in. So she does the only thing she can and throws herself at him before he has a chance to leave._

_He catches her with a startled noise. If pressed, she’d call it a surprised laugh, but really, it’s more of a squeak, like a noise she thinks a dolphin would make. Hell, it probably is. It’s also the most completely undignified sound she’s ever heard._

_Between her giggles and his grumbling, the second kiss is a complete disaster, but the awkward tension is gone and when she grabs handfuls of his undoubtedly ridiculous shirt and pulls him down into her tangled and slightly sandy pile of mismatched bedding, he goes easily._

_For once, Poseidon stays all night._

XxXx

The next morning, Sally watches Nathan, the sweet, easily entertained, ten-month-old from next door for a couple of hours while Nadine runs a couple of errands. Figuring she could use the practice, she’s been babysitting Nate practically since the day he was born, since before she could even tell anybody she was pregnant herself.

 _“You can’t say anything,”_ _Poseidon says picking up his trident from where it leans by the door just as she realizes she doesn’t know how it got there._ _“Not until… oh January. These pregnancies always turn out to be… a bit long, it’ll be at least July before-”_

_“-and nobody else will notice,” she cuts in with an eye roll. “And nobody knows why because Apollo can’t do a proper study until you start admitting that these affairs actually still exist and kids don’t just pop out of the ground.”_

_He scowls, but when Poseidon pulls her against him one last time, Sally can feel the chuckle rolling through him. The words grumbled against her temple are in Ancient Greek, but she manages to get the gist:_ “It’s not just me… and it’s been known to happen.”

_She laughs a little, and then, burying her face against his chest, breathes deep. It’s impossible to tell which parts of the clean, salty, and breezy (and yes, okay, just a little bit fishy) smell filling her lungs comes from him and what comes from down the beach. Maybe it’s just all him, she doesn’t know how it works. She never asked._

_His heart beats somewhere beneath her cheek and she tries to memorize the sound. It’s constant and unyielding, but always changing, without the same steady predictability of her own. She thinks the rhythm probably matches the waves beating against the beach, though somehow she never got around to finding out for sure._

_Sally doesn’t know which one of them is dragging this out, still trying to put off the inevitable._

_She starts to step back, to let him go, but Poseidon immediately pulls her up for a kiss. This time it’s soft and almost heartbreakingly sweet, lacking all of the pure desperation of the past twelve or so hours. It tastes like goodbye._

_“Go,” she breathes when they break apart, “we’ll manage.”_

_When he does she stands in the narrow, uneven doorway like they’re in some ridiculous romantic drama._

_He doesn’t look back._

Sally had wanted the practice, so when Nadine had mentioned over dinner that she sometimes wished she had help while Tom was at work, she volunteered. It’s since become a habit and, in the end, she’d told Nadine before she’d told Lisa.

The morning is a little more complicated with two babies and, though Nathan is always easy to care for, she eventually ends up with two little boys screaming at the top of their lungs. As it turns out, Percy’s hungry, while Nathan needs a diaper change. She’s just set a happy, gurgling Nathan on the floor and settled onto the couch with Percy when there’s a knock on the door. She’s not expecting anybody but Nadine so she quickly makes sure everything that should be covered is and calls out, “It’s open!”

There’s a moment of rustling on the other side and the door swings open. Nadine steps through and closes the door with her shoulder. Sally tenses almost immediately. Nadine always puts her groceries away and, occasionally, takes a quick shower or something before coming to pick up Nathan and chat.

Today, she’s carrying to heavy looking paper bags.

“Don’t start,” Nadine says before Sally can do more than open her mouth. She heads straight to the kitchen to start putting things away, wrinkling her nose a bit when she sees just how empty the cupboards are. “Tom got a raise a few weeks ago, so we have some extra money.”

“Nadine, I can’t-” Sally starts before pulling a face and glancing under her blanket to adjust Percy.

“We know you don’t want any help, but we’ve talked it over and you need this more than we do. You won’t ask for help, but, Tom and I, we’re going to give it to you anyway.” Sally opens her mouth to try again, but Nadine’s lips twitch as she cuts her off, “Sweetheart, if you’re going to feed him, if you’re going to be able to do anything for him, you need to take care of yourself first.”

For a long moment, Sally doesn't say anything. All she can think about is the decision she made the night before, about how, in order to protect Percy, she has to put them both in danger. She hopes the man she finds is more like Uncle Rich than his friends, he, at least, reserved his nastier side for grown woman and left children alone. In the meantime, however...

Sally practically deflates with a sigh, "Fine," and then with a lip quirk of her own, "but I will pay you back."

"I never expected anything less," Nadine says flourishing a receipt as she finishes folding the empty bags. She sticks the slip of paper to the fridge with a magnet. "I had the cashier ring your stuff up separately, easier to keep track of that way."

"Thank you." It comes out sounding far more relieved than Sally had ever intended it to.

"Just make a list next week, yeah?" Nadine slips her hand into the front pocket of her well-worn jeans and holds up a folded check. "Here's what we owe you for the last month," she says and sets it, like always, under the pepper shaker on the microwave so it won't get lost.

"Nadine-"

"A deal's a deal," she says firmly as she goes to scoop Nathan off his blanket and tickles his belly to make him laugh, "God knows you don't make anything filling in at that shop on the corner." She stoops a little to grab the diaper bag from by Sally's feet and glances around the little apartment to see if there's anything laying out that she's forgotten. "If you ever need a babysitter, don't hesitate to ask, if we're free..." she lets the sentence hang.

Sally smiles tiredly and shifts Percy to her shoulder. "I know. Actually," she adds straightening a little as Nadine pauses with her hand on the door and raises and eyebrow, "I called JHS earlier." And she had, early enough that she hadn't been sure if somebody would even be there to answer.

"Yeah?" Nadine's already grinning,

"There's still space in one of their night classes and if I hurry they'll let me in before they start."

"When?" Nadine asks like it's all she needs to know. Maybe it is, she's the one who'd pointed out the flyers to Sally nearly a month ago.

"Tuesdays and Thursdays, seven to ten, but it sounds like some of the exams are on different days so they don't take from regular class time." Gods, she's exhausted already.

"Well," Nadine drawls out, "it's not like we ever do anything during the week."

Sally blinks. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Nadine grins, "Tom won't mind."

XxXx

She really can't afford it, but on August the twenty-eighth, Sally takes Percy back to the hospital for his one week checkup like the doctor ordered. The last thing she wants to do is take a one week old on the train, especially when she knows medicine will be a bitch to pay for when he eventually gets sick, but it isn't like she has any other options.

"Perseus Jackson?" the nurse at the pediatrics check-in desk repeats surprised, "born last week?"

"That's right," Sally says, nervously adjusting Percy into one arm so she can dig her ID out of her purse.

The nurse frowns for a minute as she taps on her keyboard and fiddles with her mouse. "Huh, that's what I thought... strange though." She pauses for a moment, her frown shifting into something more thoughtful and then vanishes as she shrugs, "Well I suppose you'll find out sooner or later in any case. A man was in here about half an hour ago, paid your accounts in full and put his credit card information on little Perseus'. Said he was the father."

Sally stares at her, blinking a little past the stinging behind her eyes. "I'm sorry?"

The nurse taps against her keyboard again, rapidly as if she can't get to whatever she's looking for fast enough. "A Mr. P. Sidon," she says, spinning her chair around and grabbing a fresh piece of paper of the printer behind her. She looks concerned as she hands it over the counter, like she's just starting to wonder if maybe to shouldn't have agreed to such a transaction after all, "That is the father?"

Sally stares down at the still-warm-from-the-printer sheet in her hands and doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. He's taken care of the obvious, of course, the bills she'd racked up the week before and the few she'd let herself accumulate over the months before, but even the last of what she owed for Uncle Rich's cancer treatments had been covered. Those had taken everything from her - her savings, Uncle Rich's savings, the house, their cars, and most of the money she'd managed to make since.

All except the little she'd set aside for a much needed trip to the beach that had wound up being much longer than she'd anticipated.

Well, she’d asked for a sign, and that’s one if she’d ever seen it. “I-yes,” she stammers, realizing the nurse is still looking at her for an answer, “he is. I’m just surprised, haven’t heard anything from him for months. I wasn’t sure if he even knew Percy had been born or not.” She’d pretty much given up on ever getting a response after waking up two days in a row without one.

“Well it certainly looks like he does,” the nurse says with a forced smile, clearly trying to be as neutral and non-judgmental as possible, “and it looks like you’re all set. If you’ll just take a seat over there, we’ll call you when we’re ready.”

“Thank you,” Sally practically whispers, speaking to Poseidon more than the nurse. She must sound a little too relieved, a little too breathless, because the nurse looks at her strangely.

The appointment goes well and by the time she’s scheduled the next one and makes it home, Sally really just wants to take a nap. Maybe she’ll even get some sleep now that she doesn’t have to worry about those particular bills. On the other hand, it’s past time to feed Percy (and then some, sorry, Baby, not on the train) and herself.

She should probably take a shower at some point, she’s sure most of that smell is coming from Percy, but probably not all of it.

After Percy is fed, changed, and laying peacefully in his crib, Sally heads over to the fridge and pulls out her leftovers from the night before. She pops them in the microwave, drops the lid in the sink, and is turning to lean against the counter when, out of the corner of her eye, she sees a tiny, bright blue envelope shimmer into existence on the side of the fridge.

She hesitates for a moment, staring at it, afraid that if she moves it’ll disappear or that it’s actually something she herself had stuck there months ago and forgotten about. But no, she’s never owned a trident shaped magnet or paper that…

Sally shifts over, ignoring the ding from the microwave behind her, and stares more closely at the envelope. Shimmering, she decides as she slides the magnet to the side and takes the little square in shaking fingers, is the wrong word. Shimmering is like...like glitter or sequins, predictable once you figure out where the light is coming from. _This_ , she thinks while she watches the lightly colored parts of the paper swirl around in constantly changing patterns, is more like sea foam riding the waves.

Slowly, she fumbles the envelope open and it unfolds into a single sheet of paper like one of those fancy wedding invitations Sally thinks she’s only seen on TV. For a moment, the paper is blank, but then the pattern shifts again and the sea foam swirls for a second before it forms recognizable words.

“Until you don’t need it.”

Her gaze flicks to the coffee table and the folded piece of printer paper that is just sticking out of the front pocket.

Sally doesn’t realize she’s sinking down the front of the cabinets until she’s curled up on the floor. She’s still clutching the note when she buries her face in her hands.

It smells like summer - like sun and salt and joy, like Poseidon. It smells like Percy.

That’s the thought that puts her over the edge and the tears start before she can do anything to stop them.


	2. A Simple Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge shout out to Mari for... everything, really.

Sometimes, when they need the help, Sally runs the register at the small convenience store on the corner. Though Sheila keeps her on payroll to keep the tax side of things tidy, she can’t really afford to give Sally a regular shift - especially since as her pregnancy progressed there wasn’t a whole lot Sally could do besides sit behind the counter. Still, when somebody calls in sick, takes a vacation, or she simply simply just needs one more person because an unexpected shipment came in, Sally’s the first one Sheila calls. Paychecks, when they exist (and they usually do because in New York shit happens and she kinda actually gets called in a lot), are weekly and though it’s never much at the end of the month, Sally somehow always manages to have enough to cover rent, if nothing else, when she adds the babysitting money from Nadine to her salary.

One of the regular employees has been out with something flu-like, so for the past several days, Sally’s been working his regular six hour shift. She’s still not doing much, Sheila won’t let her (“Jesus, Jackson, put the box down you just had a baby!”) and weekdays are actually pretty slow when most of the neighborhood’s off at their own jobs, but it’s not an awful way to spend the day.

She’s been getting a lot of studying done.

Nadine, who’s already become Sally’s go-to sitter by default, assures her it’s fine and that they can just start swapping babysitting duties without exchanging money at all, but between work and class, she feels like she’s barely had time to pick Percy up, let alone drop him off again. It’s ridiculous of course, she has plenty of time for the endless cycle of cat-naps, feedings, and diaper changes and she knows that she’s still been home just as much as anybody with a regular, full time job would be.

She still hates it.

And now she’s walking home from class at ten-thirty on a chilly Thursday night and Sally can’t remember the last time she held him or even slept. She’s certain it was fairly recently as far as these things go, within the last twelve and twenty-four hours respectively, but it seems as if she’s forgetting what either one feels like.

Really, she thinks that maybe she just misses being pregnant and the days when cradling Percy was as easy as sliding a hand across her belly. Sleep came fast and easy during the early days, she’s been missing that for months.

Even Percy, as young as he is, seems to be feeling the distance. For the past three days, ever since she started going back to work, he’s been fussy. Nothing seems to be particularly wrong, there are no signs of a diaper rash, Nadine doesn’t recognizes any signs for the usual minor illnesses, and it is far too early for even a demigod to be teething and yet, Percy isn’t eating or sleeping like he had been. Even cuddles, something Nadine and Sheila swear by, seem to do little good.

Percy’s three-week check-up is in the morning, thank God (Apollo?), Sally’s really not sure how much more any of them can take.

Finally, she reaches the run down building she calls home. She ducks inside, out of the wind, and pauses to grab her mail out of the wall of locked boxes just inside the door before hurrying up the creaking staircase as fast as her tired legs will carry her. Nadine’s apartment is closer to the stairs, but she walks past it.

Sally can hear at least one set of tiny lungs on the other side of the thin door as she passes and her heart breaks a little. She unlocks her door and fumbles for the light switch as she steps inside. She drops her the backpack she’s had since high school just inside the door, hopefully it’s somewhere near the wall, but she just leaves it where it falls.

Quickly, she flips through the stack of envelopes in her hand, tossing each haphazardly onto the catch-all that is her coffee table: bill, credit card application, rent notice, reminder to vote for something in the something election… ugh. She drops her keys onto the table and, now that her hands are free, she shrugs out of her jacket and tosses it in the same general direction as her bag.

After a stop in the tiny bathroom off the bedroom and moment she uses to change into something more comfortable than jeans and a maternity top that’s starting to feel huge, Sally rushes back through the living room. Then, rolling her eyes at herself, she kicks the coat out of her way and heads back into the hallway.

Seconds later, she knocks on Nadine’s door. Tom, tall, dark, exhausted and carrying a sleepy yet wide awake and surprisingly calm Nathan on one arm, answers it even quicker. Sally cringes a little the instant she sees him. “I’m sorry,” she says above the pathetic whimpering that’s coming from somewhere deeper in the room.

It’s a sound she’s heard a lot the past couple of days, this sad little noise that seems to mean that Percy’s past the point of crying but still needs her to just understand. He’s not hungry or wet, she already knows what that sounds like, but this, this tiny, heartbroken noise, she wishes she didn’t even know it existed. It hurts.

Her poor baby.

Tom’s lips twitch in a tiny smile, simultaneously amused and understanding. “It happens,” he says stepping back and letting her in, “doesn’t mean it’s your fault.”

Between the second bedroom, Nadine’s interior decorating abilities, and its position in the corner of the building,  the McCracken apartment makes Sally’s feel like a slightly too big closet. Though the kitchen and living room combo is nearly identical between the units, in Nadine’s hands it seems less like a cramped attempt to save space and more like one of those big, open houses Sally thinks she’ll never be able to afford. Even the toys scattered around the floor never seem to ruin the effect all that much.

Normally, she takes a moment to appreciate the difference and wonder how her friend does it, but today Sally just gives Tom a grateful smile before heading straight for the second-hand Lay-Z-Boy recliner and the whimpering bundle in Nadine’s arms.

When Nadine hands him over, Sally scoops her son up and settles him against her shoulder as gently as she can. Even the slightest amount of jostling, no matter how necessary and unavoidable it actually is, has been known to set him off again, but, tonight, the whimpering stops almost before she touches him. She rubs a hand down his back and Percy relaxes, somehow leaning into her just a tiny bit more despite the fact that he really doesn’t possess the strength to do anything but lean against her yet. Tonight, it seems, Percy’s own sleeplessness is finally catching up with him.

Sally closes her eyes for a moment and rests her forehead against the top of Percy’s, just a little. He shifts a bit, slipping towards her neck until she steadies him, and makes a teeny snuffling noise that she generally tends to associate with puppies.

“Long day?” Nadine asks tiredly from somewhere below her, no doubt still in the recliner.

Sally hums, pressing her nose into the ridiculously soft hair that’s just brushing her cheek. She ignores the snort of laughter coming from somewhere behind her and just breathes. There’s the usual baby smell, that unique blend of powder, lotion, and laundry detergent that she still associates with Nathan, but beneath that there’s the fresh, clean smell of an ocean breeze. A faint hint of salt that she thinks is uniquely Percy, at least in this century.

She’s still so exhausted she wonders how she can see straight, but somehow it just doesn’t matter as much anymore.

XxXx

“Well,” Dr. Nolan begins, taking his seat at the little desk in the corner of the exam room, “there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with little Perseus.” To his credit, he hadn’t even twitched when he first saw the name on Percy’s medical chart, but Percy’s three weeks old and he still insists on saying the whole thing like he can convince her to change her mind. “He doesn’t even seem to be getting a cold.”

Halfway through readjusting Percy’s clothes, Sally does her best to suppress her responding, slightly disappointed, sigh. It’s the answer she’d expected, but the peacefulness of the night before had ended sometime around two o’clock and she’s really, really, looking forward to the day Percy starts sleeping through the night.

The doctor taps his pen against the notepad on the desk then leans back causing the chair to squeak in protest. He watches her for moment while she struggles a little with the teenie plastic buttons on Percy’s onesie and carefully slips his legs through the little baby jeans Nadine and Tom had given her. Lisa was right, all of Nathan’s old clothes are too big on Percy, but he’s growing quickly and she knows she’ll have to find the money for new ones soon.

“Really,” he says reassuringly, “you’ve got yourself a completely normal, perfectly healthy, little boy there. First time mothers get nervous over nothing all the time, I’m sure everything is completely fine.”

Except Percy isn’t normal and it’s only the knowledge that any attempt to explain it would probably end with her being admitted to the psychiatric ward for evaluation that keeps Sally from wiping the amused grin off his face.

This more than her freaking out over nothing. Something is… maybe not wrong precisely, but something isn’t right. She can feel it in her gut the same way she had known that the strange man on the beach wasn’t carrying around a giant fork because his younger brother had dared him to. It’s not her fault that Percy had managed to wear himself out before they made it to an exam room. Just ask the nurse at the waiting room desk, Percy can be loud and even the fish in the big tank were doing nothing to distract him (though a couple of toddlers were completely fascinated with the way every fish in the tank followed her while she paced Percy around the room).

Something must show in her expression because the doctor’s face softens in understanding and he leans forward, trying again. “Look, you said you’ve gone back to work, yes?”

“It’s not ideal,” Sally sighs, reaching for the blanket the hospital had given her three weeks ago, “but I don’t have many other options.” The exam table is just a little wobbly so she spreads the blanket out with one hand and uses the other to keep Percy steady. Once it’s as good as she thinks it’s going to get, she shifts Percy over.

“I’m sure you worry the whole time you’re there, you’ve left Perseus with somebody you trust - a relative, a friend, a neighbor - but your mind just can’t stop coming up with the worst case scenario.”

He’s right, of course, and she nods a little while she makes sure Percy’s wrapped up all nice and warm to ward against the chill outside that’s started to set in over the past week or so. Sally’s worked three days this week and she’s already lost track of how many times she’s had to reminder herself that that cyclopes apparently prefer sheep and peanut butter cups to children.

She still thinks Poseidon might have been pulling her leg with that one.

“Babies get separation anxiety too, it’s completely normal, but he has no other way to communicate.” Doctor Nolan shrugs and gives her a rueful smile, “Or it could just be growing pains, they grow a lot at this age. I know you want to fix everything, but sometimes your best is all you can do.”

The tightness in her chest seems to travel to her throat and Sally struggles to swallow past the sudden lump while she shrugs into her coat, scoops Percy into her arms, and stoops a bit to grab the handle of her backpack (emptied of schoolbooks and reloaded with baby supplies) from one of the empty chairs by the desk. “Thanks, Doc, anything else?”

“I think we can go ahead and put the next one off until the two month mark, unless, of course, something comes up.” The doctor heaves himself out of the chair and walks across the closet sized room to open the door.

Sally starts to follow him down the hall and about walks into his back when he halts by the counter that wraps around the sea of desks that take up the large open space near the swinging doors that lead back to the waiting room. He hands Percy’s folder off to a nearby nurse and offers Sally the big tub of safety pops she’s absolutely positive they normally reserve for the kids. She blinks in surprised and the smile comes unbidden as she reaches in to pull a candy at random before slipping it into the side pocket of her bag for later.

“Take a deep breath, relax, make as much time for you as you can, and enjoy it. You’re doing fine.” He arches his eyebrows and waits for her slightly amused nod before glancing down at his watch. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m completely booked today.”

“Of course,” Sally says and she starts to thank him again, but Doctor Nolan is already walking away, hurrying down the hall towards his next patient, so she just shrugs it off and pushes her way through the doors.

After a not-actually-so-quick stop at the counter to schedule Percy’s next appointment, she heads outside and, tucking Percy close to her chest and as far out of the wind as she can manage, sets off down the busy sidewalk. This close to the hospital people tend to step out of her way when they realize she has a baby with her, but it’s still New York and every few steps she has to readjust her hold on Percy or reach back to pull her bag a little higher on her shoulders. Sometimes, because Percy’s partially hidden by her jacket and, from a distance, it looks like she’s hugging herself, but people don’t notice he’s there until it’s almost too late.

As she shifts her grip and glances down to make sure she hasn’t accidentally covered his face for what must be the tenth time in as many steps, she realizes that she really needs to find the money for a sling or car seat. Just any other way to carry him really.

She loves carrying him like this, the warm, reassuring weight of him in her arms, the way he sometimes curls in closer or makes tiny noises that aren’t quite babbling, she truly does. She loves having him close, but it’s exhausting and probably not completely safe.

Not to mention damned inconvenient.

It’s a long trip trip back to their apartment.

Percy, it seems, really doesn’t like the subway and, for the second time today, starts howling before they even make it down the stairs into the station. The first time she’d heard it, she’d realized that this cry is different from his usual ones; this isn’t the high pitched screech that means Percy’s hungry or the wavering sob of the truly tired. No, this cry is similar to the one she’s been hearing more and more over the past week which, really, is just a more intense version of the one he makes when he wants a diaper change. (That one, to her constant amusement, only happens when the diaper is messy; being simply wet doesn’t bother him at all.)

While she does her best to calm him, but, unsurprisingly these days, the pacifier doesn’t satisfy. a few people glance over with that sense of disinterested annoyance she really associates with all native New Yorkers and she gives them a little, apologetic shrug.

What are you going to do, really.

They’re about halfway home when the cry turns high and demanding so, deciding that it can’t possibly hurt, Sally ducks off the train at the next stop so she can feed him in the station’s dingy bathroom. She even takes the time to change his diaper, because she swore to herself a week ago that she will not, under any circumstances, use his, ah, tolerance for uncomfortable liquids as an excuse to save money on diapers.

It doesn’t take care of the underlying problem, whatever it is, but the pit stop helps a little bit. At the very least, the milk makes Percy sleepy enough that his cry skips completely over the tired sobs and goes directly to those tiny, heartbreaking whimpers by the time they make it on another train. He doesn’t calm down completely until they reach their stop and Sally takes him out of the subway system entirely.

In this part of the city, the streets are quieter and Percy falls into an uneasy doze while she walks. By the time Sally makes it back the the apartment building, she thinks her arms might actually fall off. How can somebody that only weighs about nine pounds be so heavy? Somehow, this trip was easier a month ago.

It takes her a moment of juggling to get the door open and step inside.

“Oh my god,” Sally exclaims taking an immediate, jarring step backwards just before she trips over the mailman crouching on the floor just inside the entryway, “I’m so sorry.” Thankfully, it somehow isn’t enough to set Percy off again. Small favors, she supposes.

He glances up from his big plastic bin of envelopes and packages, a wickedly amused smirk sliding off his face as his eyes settle on Percy. “No worries,” he says cheerfully and with just a slightest hint of Poseidon’s accent like her heart isn’t already sinking to somewhere around her toes. “We’re just running a little behind today, your usual guy called in sick and I got stuck with a double route.”

“Of course,” she says blandly, too blandly, and, though his attention is on the stack of envelopes he’s quickly sorting into mailboxes faster than she can follow, she sees the smirk make a reappearance. “It gets cold out there, I’m sure it happens all the time.”

He mutters something under his breath, tossing a stack of letters up so they, impossibly, float into the mailbox for somebody on the sixth floor, it’s faint, but she recognizes rapid-fire Ancient Greek when she hears it. It’s different in his mouth, reminding her less of waves against the shore and more of… wings, maybe? Something fluttery and elusive, gone as quick as it arrives. It’s not quite identifiable at any rate. Still, it’s comforting in a way, though she thinks that the fact he - Hermes, the messenger, her brain supplies from her partially forgotten memories of a Classics unit in high school English - is willing to so readily admit his identity should probably terrify her.

“Relax,” Hermes says, rising out of the crouch and, as he settles his plastic tub against his hip and starts to stuff mailboxes a bit more conventionally - though without ever looking at an address, “I’m really not here to take you in, or kill you, or whatever else it is you’re thinking of.”

Percy stirs in her arms and, without taking her eyes of the man, the god, in front of her, Sally shifts a bit to accommodate him. Uncertain, she chews nervously on her lip. Poseidon hadn’t told her what to do if his family showed up on her front doorstep.

“Or him,” the god says glancing over with a small, almost fond, smile. “Or anybody for that matter.”

With the uniform and grey streaking through his cropped curls, Hermes doesn’t even seem like a god. Despite looking like he can run a marathon or three without ever breaking a sweat, he’s just a little too old, too short, too commonplace to be anything other than what he appears to be. Which, she supposes, is exactly the idea. Mailmen aren’t particularly noticeable until you trip over one.

Well, it can’t hurt to just ask.

“Then what do you want?”

“Want?” He flips a few pieces of what looks like junk mail into slots, tosses the bin carelessly over his shoulder (it disappears before it gets anywhere near the opposite wall), and, with one smooth motion, slides the wall closed so silently she misses the click as it latches. “Honey, I’m just doing my job. Sign here, please.”

Sally blinks, trying to figure out where he had pulled the clipboard from, but adjusts Percy into one arm so she can take the proffered pen. When it wiggles, she drops it again.

Before she can react, Hermes snatches the pen out of midair and holds it back up for her to take, “That’s just George and Martha, they’ve been around since oh… forever.” Sally doesn’t think she’s ever actually seen anybody smirk before, now she wonders if Hermes invented it. “Also, apparently I’m an asshole for not warning you, which, admittedly, is probably true.”

Slowly, carefully, Sally takes the pen back. Now that she’s paying attention, she can see two miniature snakes intertwined around it, wiggling down towards the point until they fit into little carved grooves and form a grip. She signs the marked line as quickly as she can and gently sets it on the clipboard. “Sorry,” she tells it - them? - and makes a mental note to go to the library to find out why, exactly, Hermes carries snakes around in his pocket.

She should go anyway, it’s been a while.

She’s watching while it happens, but she still can’t figure out where the clipboard goes.

“Your stuff’s waiting for you upstairs,” Hermes tells her with a wink as he brushes past her towards the door, “since you don’t have the hands for it. Oh, and Jackson? I’m just the mailman, but somehow I don’t think Uncle’s kids are terribly fond of being dry all the time, especially the tiny ones.”

Then he’s just gone, like he’d never been there at all. The whole thing takes maybe three minutes.

Bathtime, Sally thinks as she turns towards the stairs, Of course.

She doesn’t understand why she hadn’t thought of that days ago.

Except, yes, she does.

She’d known nothing about babies, not a damn thing. So, after getting back from Montauk, she’d started babysitting Nathan. When she had the chance, she’d go to the closest branch of the library, head straight for the parenting section, and read everything on newborns that she’d been able to get her hands on. (She’d saved books on the actual pregnancy until later, starting in on them when Nadine had squeaked and shoved her own battered copy of What to Expect into Sally’s hands.)

Even now, she isn’t sure how much of the resulting onslaught of information applies to Percy, not when she was pregnant with him for over a year and certainly not with his family tree. Mostly, Sally assumes that the major milestones will be the same, though probably a bit early (Tom swears up and down he heard Percy “talking” a week ago) and that she will be able to handle anything a bit out of the ordinary.

Still, the guilt settling in her stomach tells her that she probably should have done some research into demigods, then known that waiting to get him in the water until the last bit of umbilical cord fell off might not be the best idea. Percy’s father is the God of the Sea, of course he wouldn’t like being dry all the time.

The real question, she decides, is, why now? Why didn’t these tears start within the first couple of days after Percy was born? There’s probably only one person who could give her the answer, and she doubts that he’s even had the opportunity to find out.

Sally goes through her, now practically routine, juggling act to get the apartment door open and after nudging it closed again, makes a beeline for crib. When she sets Percy down, he frowns a bit around the pacifier and sucks for a moment or two, but stays asleep. She’ll save the bath for later then.

She shrugs out of the backpack, sets it on the floor as quietly as she can and is trying to rub some feeling back into her shoulders when she notices the box on the table. It’s mostly square and shallow, wrapped neatly with brown paper and string. Her usual mail, mostly flyers and another menu from that one Chinese place, are stacked neatly on top.

The intrusion should probably bother her, but Sally just wonders if Hermes can set it up as a regular thing. That probably says something about her, but she’s not sure what.

There are no stamps, no labels from the post office, no return address, nothing at all to show where the box came from. In fact, apart from the thick black marker spelling out her name and address, the package is completely blank.

It’s been years since she’d been given a wrapped present (Lisa tends to just leave it in whatever bag the store put it in, Nadine and Tom usually go for cash), so when she tears into the paper, she does it eagerly. As it turns out, the paper is too thick to rip properly and she just ends up disappointed.

Then she sees the picture on the front of the thin cardboard and opens the box so fast she almost rips the top flap clean off. Sure enough, the factory-sealed plastic bag she finds inside holds something that, at first glance, looks an awful lot like her old backpack, if her backpack had extra straps to wrap around her waist and leg holes, that is.

So much for needing to find money to buy a sling.

“Thank you,” Sally murmurs to the room at large as she pulls the little instruction book out of the bottom of the box. She doesn’t know who she’s talking to, Hermes, Poseidon, or somebody else entirely, but she hopes they understand just how grateful she is for the little bit of help they’re able to offer.

There’s dishes in the sink, clothes spilling out of the full hamper, and a stack of GED practice tests on the table. Sally wants to take a shower, to eat, to take a nap, maybe read a book. There’s a lot of things she should be, could be, doing during the time Percy’s asleep. Instead, she flips through the instruction book and practices putting on the baby carrier because she knows the instant she puts the book down for any extended length of time she’ll never be able to find it again.

When Percy wakes forty minutes later and immediately starts crying, she abruptly realizes she has no idea how she’s going to give him a bath. It’s his “I’m uncomfortable” cry, or a version of it in any case, but there’s just a hint of the “I’m hungry” screech so she feeds him again. Really, it’s just a shameless excuse to buy herself more time to think.

At first she can’t get him to latch on, this really isn’t what he wants right now, and she sighs a little, stroking a finger down his red, tear-stained cheek. “I know, baby, Mama’s working on it,” she murmurs and is surprised when he blinks and actually seems to focus on her for a second before cooperating.

Well alright then, she probably imagined that.

At this age, Percy’s supposed to get sponge baths, if he gets them at all, but a damp wash cloth isn’t really all that different from a diaper wipe and those, clearly, aren’t good enough.

Gut instinct tells her that she needs to surround him with as much water as possible. Motherly instinct says that completely submerging him, Son of Poseidon or not, is an awful idea.

Why couldn’t he have given her an idea for when this kind of thing would develop? Surely there’s a pamphlet somewhere.

She knows that Nadine has one of those little tubs for Nathan, but then she’d have to explain why she needs to give her perfectly clean infant son a proper bath before he’s anywhere near old enough and she doesn’t have a proper answer. Sally doesn’t have one herself for two simple reasons: she hadn’t expected to need one yet, and by the time Percy’s actually old enough for one, Nathan will be too big and Nadine had already offered to let her borrow it.

Sally’s memories of her parents are spotty at best, she’d been five when the plane went down, but she knows there are pictures of her getting a bath in the kitchen sink somewhere. She rules that idea out for the same reason she’s not even considering just sticking him in the tub: Percy can’t sit up on his own yet.

Maybe she can just get in the shower and hold him under the spray? She doesn’t need free hands to soap him up or anything, this isn’t about getting him clean, but that’s not exactly surrounding him with water. She really has no idea if it’ll be enough.

Still, it’s probably her best bet, so once Percy’s fed and burped, she takes him into the bedroom and begins the process of getting them both undressed.

“Shhh, Sweetheart,” Sally murmurs when he starts making miserable, whimpering sounds a few minutes later, “Mama’s gonna fix it.” Finally, she takes his diaper off and, as quickly as she can, she rolls it up and scoops him off the bed before he can pee all over her sheets again. “Come on, Baby, you’re gonna like this, I promise.”

It only takes her a few seconds to cross into the bathroom and toss the diaper into the little trash can. Then she’s stepping into the shower, pulling the curtain closed, and sighing a little in relief because she made it before Percy could make a mess all over everything.

But really, if Percy ruined the floor it’d be the building manager’s fault, who carpets a bathroom anyway.

Actually bending over to turn the knobs proves to be a bit of a challenge, but when the water starts running out of the lower faucet, Percy goes completely still. He turns his head a little to look and when he turns back to look up at her, his eyes are open so wide that, just for one slightly bizarre second, she thinks they might actually fall out of his head.

“Yeah?” she asks him through her responding giggles, “You like that?”

Percy’s already turned back to the water, wiggling a little with what’s definitely excitement and she can’t help but laugh some more as she reaches for the knobs again. Maybe she’ll find a sweet spot between “too hot for babies” and “too cold for grown-ups.” Though it probably takes her less than a minute, the process seems to go on forever, minute twists of the knob followed by sticking her hand under the water, then back to knob, but eventually she finds a setting she thinks will work.

She’s debating about whether she should try for something a just little warmer when she hears the unmistakable sound of water hitting the plastic curtain. Blinking a little in surprise, she immediately looks up to check the showerhead, but, of course, she hasn’t pulled the plug to turn it on yet.

Slowly, she looks over at the curtain and follows what’s left of the stream to the tiny boy in her arms. Without really thinking about it, she flicks the water off of her damp fingers onto his tummy in retaliation.

He stills, and for a split second, she thinks that the water was too hot, too cold, too something, but then the next happy wiggle is so strong she has get both arms around him so he doesn’t wiggle himself right into the tub. The smile, when she sees it, is the biggest, happiest, most ridiculous looking grin she has ever seen.

It’s also three weeks early.

At least.

XxXx

Sally’s days begin to fall into a pattern, finding a comfortable rhythm that somehow reminds her of what she lost back when Uncle Rich got cancer. It’s completely different of course, she’s really the only similarity between this life and that one and she’s not even the same person she was three weeks ago, but somehow it manages to feel the same.

Maybe there’s just something about finding a routine that feels like more than a waste of time, about feeling that maybe she might finally be doing something worthwhile. Her last couple years of high school were like that, back when she was sure she would be something someday.

Now, she just wants to be the best mother can be.

Even if, a lot of the time, that seems to mean being some place that Percy isn’t.

She works when she can, filling it at a moment’s notice when Sheila needs her. In October, one of the younger employees, a high school senior who’s been working at the store for a couple of years, unexpectedly quits and Sheila starts giving Sally his regular shifts. It’s nowhere near full time, only about fifteen hours a week, plus whatever extra time she ends up putting in, but having guaranteed money coming makes all the difference.

They both know that it isn’t going to work long term, not when Sally really does need more and Sheila can hire another student for less, but there’s no hard feelings. When Sheila starts conducting interviews, Sally gives her honest opinion on the kids she has the chance to meet. Sheila, in turn, helps Sally skim through the classifieds when they have a free minute or two.

Two nights a week, Sally goes to her GED prep classes and, even a couple of months in, they’re easier than she’d expected. She’d only been a semester or so from graduating and, since she’s good at remembering things she’s read, school had always been pretty easy for her, so she knows that ease she falls back into the student’s role shouldn’t surprise her nearly as much as it does.

Maybe the girl she was five years ago isn’t actually as different from her as she thinks.

As always, English, History, and their related subjects come naturally to her but, though she’d never really had problems making it through the test, Sally’s never had much of a head for numbers. There’s just something about equations that keep them from sticking in her memory, so while she has to put some effort into government and economics, she’s able to focus most of her attention on the areas she has the most trouble with: math, physics, and chemistry.

She does well enough that when sign-ups open in November for a January exam session, the tutor hands Sally a copy of the registration form when she’s on her way out the door. They only meet once that week, due to Thanksgiving, and Sally gladly takes the extra time to think it over. She’s really not sure she’ll be ready, but with Lisa and Nadine’s separate yet equally confident urging, Sally fills the form out and hands it in with the money she’s just barely managed to set aside for her registration fee.

It might not be with the flying colors she was used to in high school, but she manages to pass all five sections.

Once she has her diploma, the job hunt starts in earnest and in February, she finds one at the McDonalds on the corner. They want her to start right away, so Sally is only able to give Sheila three days notice instead of the customary two weeks. She feels awful about it, but when she tries to apologize Sheila starts laughing.

As it turns out, Sheila’s been dragging her hiring process out for months so she didn’t have to cut Sally’s hours.

At only about thirty hours a week, the new job is still considered part time, but they pay well - for fast food anyway. She ends up working the early morning shift and, though it’s not something she’d normally volunteer to do, she finds herself almost enjoying it. Sure, leaving Percy with Nadine before five-thirty every morning is absolutely awful, but getting off before noon means that she still has the best part of the day to spend with Percy.

Nadine, for her part, assures Sally that she really doesn’t mind. Nathan has her up that early most days anyway and, really, it’s not like she has a real job to go to. Since she watches Percy a lot more than Sally watches Nathan, simply trading babysitting shifts stops seeming fair, if it ever was. Neither of the McCrackens argue when Sally stops letting them give her money for groceries, but they won’t even consider charging her what they had paid her to watch Nathan. As a result, setting their standard babysitting fee takes a surprising amount of negotiation but, eventually, they find a compromise. They aren’t too worried about actually getting their money and encourage her to pay them what she can, when she can.

She writes them a check every time she gets paid, but it never feels like enough.

In early May, Sally gets a raise when the store manager surprises everybody by deciding that he wants her to be the morning shift manager when the old one moves to afternoons. When the training part of the promotion is over, she gets bumped up to full time and, though she hates the extra time spent away from Percy, the money is nice. She knows she should use the extra money to pay Nadine, but she has plans for Percy’s birthday so she puts most of it aside and tries to convince herself that it isn’t taking advantage of the McCrackens’ generosity.

Of course, just when she starts to think she might even have extra by the time August rolls around, she has to buy Percy bigger clothes. Again.

After the success of the first one, Sally made joint showers part of their regular routine. At first, they didn’t happen every day, she just can’t get herself clean while she’s holding him and since he couldn’t sit on his own, she couldn’t let him splash around by her feet. Still, after her miserable little boy was instantly replaced by the happiest baby she’s ever seen, she started making sure it happened at least once a week.

After that, the babbling Nadine was sure Tom had imagined became the soundtrack of their lives. Once Percy got started, it was like he couldn’t stop. For the most part, Percy’s babbling is just that, random noises he makes over and over just because he just really likes to hear himself make them, but every so often Sally catches a word she thinks she might recognize. She doesn’t know what it means, it’s definitely not English, but she’s pretty sure she’s heard it before.

Somehow, the first real growth spurt catches Sally by surprise. She’d known Percy was growing of course, she’s pretty sure she’s getting arm muscles to prove it, but it isn’t until Doctor Nolan jokingly asks if she’s sure she brought the right baby to their two month check-up that she really notices.

And it doesn’t stop there.

As she’d expected, Percy hits all of the major milestones early, really early.

He rolls over on Thanksgiving. Sally turns around for thirty seconds to help Nadine with the potatoes and by the time she glances over her shoulder he’s on his back.

By Christmas, he sits well enough that she puts him down in the shower as a trial run and then ends up reaching for the shampoo after the first thirty seconds. Thank god. She thinks he must remember what running water sounds like because he’s started to cry every time she takes one without him and there’s nothing quite as guilt tripping as that particular sound. Now, he starts getting a shower every time she does.

Nadine is fascinated, jealous even, until she turns around to put more juice in Nathan’s sippy cup one morning in February and loses Percy. “Your son’s banned from ever walking,” she dryly informs Sally the moment she sees her that afternoon, “he crawled behind Tom’s armchair about an hour ago and nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Percy’s first steps happen in late April when he’s just barely eight months old.

And in May, Percy reaches a milestone that she probably should have seen coming.

Sally’s shower is starting to feel like a bath, there’s so much water lapping around her ankles, but at first she doesn’t think much of it. So, the drain is clogged again, big deal. She’ll take care of it later.

It isn’t like Percy can’t handle it.

He’s having a blast. He doesn’t usually have this much water to play with and today he’s splashing around so much his little plastic boats almost look as if they’re sailing around on little currents.

It’s almost like a trial run for a actual bath. Whether or not he gets starts getting those instead depends on how much water she has to soak out of the carpet later.

She snorts a little in amusement, glances down to make sure he isn’t in her way, and turns around to rinse the shampoo out of her hair. She’s just about to open her eyes again when something brushes against her calf. “Are you tickling me, Baby?”

He giggles and does it again.

Sally smiles, “I’m almost done, Sweetheart, give me a second and we can play.” She shakes the water out of her face, opens her eyes, looks down -

Oh.

Percy giggles again and the little hurricane spins down the length of the tub, crossing his lap in the process. It’s tiny, maybe six inches tall and four across at most, but there’s no denying it.

When she steps out of the tub a little while later, the floor is completely dry and, as usual, so is Percy. Sally wraps a towel around him anyway, and when she scoops him up again, he yawns, hugely, and snuggles into her shoulder. He’s asleep in seconds.

She’s just starting to wonder how worried she should be - water normally wakes him up like nobody’s business, it’s why they tend to do this earlier in the day - when, with a gurgling sound, the water drains out of the tub like there had never been anything blocking it in the first place.

She really needs to make that trip to the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming soon - Chapter Three: They Live in Peace

**Author's Note:**

> I'm liveblogging my writing process over on tumblr, so if anybody has questions or just wants to see how the next chapter is doing, I'm starksgrace.
> 
> Coming soon: Chapter Two: A Simple Life


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